Personally, I consider it to be a musical - and production - masterpiece.
I'm not even that big of a Beach Boys fan, really... but this album was so amazing - in performances, engineering and production... and I still think it's amazing.
Absolute proof that the music should always be the primary foundation of any project, but when married to technology - in this case, the technology of the time - true art is born.
This album, much like The Beatle's Sgt. Pepper, is a sonic painting... textures, space, depth, it's got it all. Even the mono version that I heard some years ago sounded fantastic to me.
Vocals and harmonies are stellar, and at a time in recording history when the singers and players needed to get it right during the performance... there was no pitch correction in those days, no copy-paste choruses...
Personally speaking, I think this album should be required listening for audio engineering students.
Anyway, enjoy. ;)
Comments
Mike Love once complained that working with Brian on the vocal t
Mike Love once complained that working with Brian on the vocal tracks was grueling, because Wilson was such a stickler for absolute perfection in the harmonies. Love referred to him as "Mister Dog Ears" because he was convinced that Brian was hearing faults in pitch that only a dog could hear - LOL.
Mike Love can yip about it all he wants, but the ultimate outcome of Brian's quest for perfection on those sessions absolutely shone through when you listened to the record. More-so, IMO, it proved that his critical ear wasn't just for the "esoteric".
Every single note, in every single interval, had a place, its place, like it had been mapped out exactly... and every phrase filled its space precisely. And not just from a theory sense, either. They were fantastic songs to begin with. They were magic songs from the start.
To this day - after hearing that album more times than I could ever count - whenever I hear the harmonies on tracks like Wouldn't It Be Nice, Caroline No, or God Only Knows, I'm still totally blown away.
DonnyThompson, post: 425845, member: 46114 wrote: This album, mu
Brian Wilson is deaf in one ear so he always mixed to mono.
the best question is; "why do i (we / you) want to record? is the song great? do the performances deserve to be documented? the worst answer would be "uh .... i wanna be a ... (insert preference; star, producer, song writer, ) .....
yeah, but LOTS of takes and editing .... the album was recorded in bits and pieces and then edited together. that was a very common practice in those days too!
don't get me started. The Four Seasons, all of the Beatles catalog too!